11.13.11

Summary: The establishment which was supposed to be taxpayers-funded (to serve taxpayers of course) is broadcasting propaganda funded by one of the world’s most infamous abusive monopolists and shady lobbyists

THIS POST is being written just 100 meters away from the BBC at Media City UK, where a lot of footage is done to promote public understanding of the world, at the expense of people who pay TV tax.

It is truly troubling that the BBC lost sight of its goals, yet again. It is now taking money from billionaires (through their front groups) for what can only be described as “placements”. They piggyback the reputation of the BBC to deceive the public, glorify themselves, and create a financial dependency (strings) in an establishment that operates worldwide, supposedly informing people.

A television health show supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation launched on BBC World News last week. The 26-part weekly magazine programme, called The Health Show, reports on global health issues from areas vulnerable to specific conditions.

This is part of the Gates PR campaign, which in turn aids lobbying and allows him to market particular patents or run the world the way he wants to. The post-Microsoft Gates is in many ways more dangerous than that man who was grilled for (and found guilty of) criminal business activities. His PR operating is currently trying to dismiss critics as “ill informed”, armed with empty and arrogant rhetoric.

Gates Keepers find it odd that this chronic problem with the Gates Foundation is being framed and labelled as a value-free ‘communication problem’. Institutional values are involved. Perhaps it is a mission problem, a leadership problem, or even an attitudinal problem. Or all three or none of them.

But the focus on a ‘communication problem’ with grantees does not allow for discussion of a far greater issue – the relationships between the Foundation and other institutions & between the Foundation and its beneficiaries around the world.

This whole “communication problem” line is not new. We saw it used before. it’s worse than the “rotten apple” line, which companies typically use to excuse themselves when they are caught in a major scandal. The author gives several examples of the whitewash. These are example that he gives of Gates-funded publications that push this form of apologism while one talks about the real issue, concluding:

Perhaps the reason this issue has become such a chronic refrain isn’t due to the lack of coming up with some new plan, or timeline or committee-designed set of principles, as it is about developing a new mindset.

As a journalist who’s been covering the Gates Foundation for more than a decade, I’ve seen it evolve from an upstart start-up philanthropy run by just a handful of people — who were actually pretty bold, outspoken and perhaps even a bit reckless — into a massive, fairly bureaucratic and apparently risk-averse organization.

The Gates Foundation has no “communication” problem. When you are doing selfish things that harm society, then it is simply hard to communicate it positivity, even when you spend a million dollars (or more) per day on media coverage that is warped, corrupted, and essentially just a case of ghost-writing/PR/placements. █

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